Extreme Hot Rod History: The Invention of the Wheel

Interesting story from Smithsonian Magazine. The wheel is not nearly as ancient as you think: it was first seen in Mesopotamia 3500 but only as a potter's wheel. They didn't figure out they could put them on chariots for another 300 years.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Salute-to-the-Wheel.html

 

Going by the photo, they probably invented the jack shortly after that......

 

followed by the first "AAA" haha.

 

Hmm... that must have been the first flat.

 

Naah, Ted Halibrand invented the wheel!

 

Outstanding desk top image! Gary

 

So 'modern' human beings have been arround for 200,000 years
(100,000 to 250,000 depending on who you believe),
And the Smithsonian want us to believe that no one spoted the round things roll
for over 190,000 years,
Sure wheels probably crude before Iron age,
till a shrink fit iron band cound be made to provide constant force to hold the wheel together while allowing some flex wheels were going to be poor,
but I seriously can't think that no one bothered,
thier wheels just broke a lot.

The Mesopotamia Chariot is intresting, four wheels no steering, early romans used same design, hence straight roads ( nothing to do with being smart, more about stole this, but it don't steer, don't have a clue how to fix it but it will be all right if there are never any bends ) which was ok till the romans got to north west Europe and found the Celts had Chariots that steered, which freaked them big time for a while, hey you know how it goes you turn up with this cool ride you stole and there is kid who has built his own and it's all tricked out with spining blades on the wheels and everything,
could ruin your day.

All history is bunk.

 

Is this for wheel?

 

People have been using iron since the stone age.

 

Heh! Wonder if there was an ancient version of Pep Boys, with iron chariot body kits and marble spoilers.

I don't think they were saying no cave man ever saw a log roll down a hill and thought about a skateboard, just that they have yet to find pre-Mesopotamian examples (as there are for dwellings and various implements). When you think about it, wheels as a means of land locomotion aren't such an obvious idea, especially in rough or swampy terrain. It requires a lot of enabling technology: roads, repair methods, etc. You wouldn't blame the ancient fabricator if he just gave up and said, "**** it, I'm riding my horse/camel/elephant." Or switched to working on the obvious transportation tech, boats.

That said, I discovered a much earlier example of wheel tech:

 

Ah right add it to the list of things 'not found'.
( you don't want me to go there )

History has long preached this idea that human developement is a 'only in the last few thousend years' thing and even when the odd artifact turns up which suggests that human developement occured earier it is countered as fake or otherwise contrived.

Forbidden Archaeology by Cremo & Thompson makes the Flintstones seem not so crazy.

 

"Fix a rock?"

 

No sweat...concrete was the first "Fix-a-flat"!

I figure wheels were an offshoot of the use of logs as simple rollers...
to reposition alien space ships that were guided in by those huge prehistoric pictures on those plains...somewhere.

There are cave drawings of people wearing what look like nitromethane masks and helmets...
but no drawings of FEDs.

Very mysterious..........!

 

No, Mike. They are saying that!

"No wheels exist in nature. Throughout history, most inventions were inspired by the natural world. The idea for the pitchfork and table fork came from forked sticks; the airplane from gliding birds. But the wheel is one hundred percent homo sapien innovation."

I think you just proved them wrong with your log example.

 

Ever see a dung beetle do work??

 

While Megan Gambino's writings on the wheel may be a rolling ball of dung, she's doing her part to to save Route 66:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Endangered-Cultural-Treasures-Historic-Route-66-USA.html

 

Knock-offs are cool.

 

To understand why it would be that it would take us so long to figure out, you need to really think about the layers of inventions that allow a wheeled cart to exist.

-First you need an axle. Wood is the obvious choice, but heavy stone wheels would stress the axle on every bump and break off the ends pretty quickly. An iron wrapped wood wheel fixes this problem, but iron was a very precious material back then. It would cost an inventor quite a bit of cash to get enough iron to wrap four wheels (probably enough for 6-8 decent swords... $$$$).

Now that you have your axle, you need to attach it to the cart. The industrious inventor must now make the leap to understand and then construct a bearing. without it, the friction will be too high to roll the cart once loaded. Early bearings were just wood blocks with a channel carved in them for oiled gunky stuff, usually cellulose type plant waste. With nothing to go off of in nature to invent such a thing, that's pretty tough to get your g**** to grasp the problem.

Axle is now attached to cart. Next item up for consideration is the yoke. You may have it easy there if your civilization is lucky enough to have large labor animals and you use them to plow fields. If so, this part is pretty cake. If not, you're back to head scratching.

Now that you invented this thing, you still don't have steering gear, and roads are still centuries away, so your cart is only of limited use. The wheeled cart required the development of a lifestyle and level of infrastructure (cities and villages linked by relatively cleared paths) that would permit it's use.

There's other curious non-starters in history. Look at the Baghdad battery. It was a chemical battery encased in a ceramic pot. Put the metal leads in the water and you get a bit of electric power. Most archeologists believe the purpose was electroplating small metallic objects for decoration. It took much longer to harness electricity for light and motors and such.

 

A log and ball of dung are not wheels. A wheel has a axle that an outer portion (rim) rotates around. Yes cylindrical shapes were used to move things but that does not make them a wheel. As Mike mentioned unless there was a real need for a wheel there would be no need to invent one. Without roads or fairly flat terrain and probably very little to transport around there really doesn't seem to be any real need for one. If you could use a couple of logs to move the stuff you needed around for short distances why would you waste the time to invent the wheel when most of your day probably revovled around trying to stay alive and find food, water etc?

 

Of course logs and balls of dung are NOT wheels. If you read the article, you'll see that it talked about things in nature inspiring invention, and that there was no inspiration for the wheel in nature. Bunk. And, that is what I addressed.

You've never worked on a hillside farm, have you? No roads, no flat terrain, but plenty need of wheeled transport.

Neolithic culture began domesticating plants and farming over 11,000 years ago, and this would generate plenty need to haul manure and harvested crops and maybe even water. I sincerely doubt it would take man another 5,500 years to think of the wheel.


Sounds like you're thinking of "cave men".

 

this cannot be true, my old man said he got his first set of wheels when he was 10, and he's older than dirt...

 

Vandals needed a hammer and chisel to flatten your tires, eh. Bubble balance or dymanic?

 

What they asre saying is there is no ACTUAL wheel found in nature for people to take the idea of an axle and a wheel from. Not that things can roll.

They were not producing huge crops. They were farming for them selves or very small communities and even if the were not and had domesticated animals large enough to pull things (I ***ume that is where they are getting these huge amounts of manure they are hauling) a sled would be much easier to drag across a rough field than a rudimentary wheel.

Thinking about something and getting it to work are two different things and I would guess that the Neolithic cultures probably didn't have alot of down time to sit around and work on a wheel until they could get it to work.

I'm not saying nobody thought of it but your need to get it to work and it may seem simple today but it would have been a fairly complex thing back then. I think this comment made in the original article is good.

IT'S NOT THE WHEEL THAT MAKES THINGS MOBILE...IT'S THE AXLE!

And the axle itself wasn't much use until someone invented the bearing that allows the axle to turn freely.
Posted by FRED ABRAHAMS on June 24,2009 | 05:37AM

 

Here's a wheel that dates from the 2nd millenium BC, excavated in Iran... neolithic dubs.

 

I would agree that the axle was the important discovery. (I don't agree with most of your other opinions or your interpretation of the ***ertions in the article, but that is OK...there is no "right" or definitive answer.) However, I would say that the log rolling down the hill is also inspirational for the axle.

 

We will agree to dissagree then.

 

Here's a toy from pre-columbian America. It shows use of wheels, but the Americans never used them for carts due to the lack of suitable draft animals and the lack of knowledge as to how to produce a load bearing axle.



Someone with more knowledge than myself could probably say if toys like this were known in the Old World, but my guess is that this type of creation would predate load bearing carts by quite a number of years.

 

I thought cavemen invented insurance? I can say that since the gf,who's an insurance agent,is not here to biff me upside my melon...

Another thing,has anyone figured what the ol' Flintstone-mobile used for a drive system? I see "wheels"(?!) and "axles",but little else. Oh,yeah;Freddy's feet. They did double-duty as brakes as well. Anyone else notice a lack of a steering mechanism on the Flintstone Flyer(apologies to Dave Koffel) as well?

My,how far we've advanced as a species...